Sabrina Siddiqui

So there may still be this risk of a lapse in coverage.

What we heard in our reporting is that according to insurance agents, most people did sign up for plans in 2026.

But a lot of them did not know what those plans are actually going to cost because we still don't know what the fate of these enhanced subsidies will be.

I spoke with one woman in Mississippi who had been uninsured before she was able to take advantage of these enhanced subsidies.

And she works at a small construction company.

So there are a lot of people who work in places where there is no employer-sponsored healthcare.

And what she said is that she actually did terminate her healthcare coverage because

what she was told is that her monthly premium, if the enhanced subsidies expire, will jump from $126 a month to about $600 a month.

And she simply can't afford that.

And this is someone who told me that she's had to get treatment for a precancerous spot on her nose.

She had to have benign tumors removed in the last few years.

And so

there's a lot of concerns for her going without health insurance and potentially having to access treatment that she's no longer going to be able to pay for.

What we also have seen based on estimates from the healthcare nonprofit KFF is that for people who receive

the enhanced subsidies, the monthly premiums on average are expected to more than double.

Well, one of the things that's been striking about this still being front and center is that Congress has actually been weighing this issue for months.

So the scenarios we're now looking at are, does the small but growing number of moderate Republicans who face vulnerable elections in the coming midterms join with Democrats and manage to pass some kind of bipartisan compromise, in part because of voter frustration over rising healthcare costs,

Or does this issue just become a political issue in the midterms?

It's important to point out that the growing number of Republicans who are either moderates or facing tough elections in the midterms who support extending these subsidies have

really voiced a lot of concern about how this issue may play out in the upcoming midterms, because this election has already been framed around affordability.